During the last years, a profound shift in the understanding of European prehistory is taking place whose scientific dimensions we only begin to grasp.

With the newest research perspectives, we are gaining a much better insight into the emergence of complex social structures, the changing role of violence in prehistory and the rise of the first States on the European continent. These results are challenging all previous models and rise completely different issues and research questions than hitherto thought of. Leading in this discussion is the archaeology of Central Germany and southeastern Spain, given that here systematic, large scale excavations in funerary sites as well as in settlements are taking place in combination with specifically designed interdisciplinary and particularly bio-archaeological research programs. Both regions are providing increasing evidence on the development of extensive settlement structures and the related economic changes towards the end of the Neolithic and in the Chalcolithic.

Defensive architecture, violent destructions and migratory movements seem to have been much more relevant in this trajectory than so far imagined. Both regions saw the rise of what appears to be the most hierarchical societies on the European continent, after experiencing a deep social and demographic crisis around 2200 BCE. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that El Argar in the western Mediterranean and Unetice in central Europe reached a degree of social and economic complexity, which probably required for the first time State or State-like institutions. However, these political systems cannot be explained in the light of the Eastern Mediterranean or Near Eastern societies but rather represent a independent development of surplus economies and class societies which was specific to European history, till the rise of the Roman empire and even beyond in the northern part of the continent.

Given the confluence of similar research perspectives and of the methodological challenges in the research teams working in both areas, the organisation of a joint workshop is proposed in order to, first, test the heuristic potential of the applied research methodologies and, second, discuss and improve different interpretive proposals. Given the immediacy of the implied archaeological and bio-archaeological discoveries,

so far, most results have been discussed at a local or national level, but remain largely unknown to a wider audience. The language barrier represents an additional hurdle, which will be overcome through mutual collaboration and exchange of information. Finally, the publication resulting out of the bilateral conference would set a fundamental academic cornerstone for the future of European archaeology and would offer insight into the changing perspectives in Europe’s later prehistory to the international public.

From 2005 to 2008 our Institute has excavated in cooperation with the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt a monumental circular enclosure at Pömmelte, next to the river...